The current trend in microfeature device fabrication is to manufacture smaller and faster microfeature devices with a higher density of components for computers, cell phones, pagers, personal digital assistants, and many other products. All microfeature devices generate heat, and dissipating such heat is necessary for optimum and reliable operation of high-performance devices. Moreover, as the speed and component density increases, the heat becomes a limiting factor in many products. For example, high performance devices that generate from 80-100 watts may not operate at rated levels or may degrade unless some of the heat is dissipated. Accordingly, heat dissipation is a significant design factor for manufacturing microfeature devices.
Stacked microfeature devices are particularly susceptible to overheating. Memory devices, for example, often have one or more dies stacked on each other to increase the density of memory within a given footprint. In stacked memory devices, each die is generally very thin to reduce the profile (i.e., height) of the device. The dies may also be thin to construct through-wafer interconnects through the dies. For example, it is much easier and more reliable to etch the vias for through-wafer interconnects when the wafer is 150 μm thick instead of the customary 750 μm thickness. However, one concern of using 150 μm thick dies in stacked assemblies is that the thinner dies have less surface area per unit volume than thicker dies. This reduces the heat transfer rate of the thinner dies such that thinner dies dissipate less heat than thicker dies. Therefore, it would be desirable to increase the heat transfer rate from very thin dies that are highly useful for constructing through-wafer interconnects and stacking on each other in low-profile stacked devices.